


White Noise

by WhiteravenGreywolf



Series: If I stay [43]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Also Carol might be going crazy, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Crazy with RAGE!!!, Depressing, F/F, everyone is so sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 11:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18716356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteravenGreywolf/pseuds/WhiteravenGreywolf
Summary: Maria and Fury have been snapped away. Monica is gone. Carol is left with nothing but a lot of guilt over her own failure, and a lot of rage toward the Mad Titan.





	White Noise

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! How was your break? Mine was awesome! I got to do a lot of writing on my personal project. I discovered all 5 seasons of Agents of SHIELD are on Amazon Prime and I binged watched the first season very quickly. I went to see Avengers Endgame yesterday and I almost passed out from a rush of blood to the brain when the final epic battle started. Oh, did I mention that I have been without Internet for the past 4 days... Yeah, that sucks. I'm actually posting this from my phone right now, which might explain why the tags weren't my usual dumb tags...  
> I really really wanted to start posting again today. I was so excited yesterday that I wrote two stories already, and a third one this morning. However, I hate posting from my phone... It's annoying as hell. So I'm hoping my Internet problems will be fixed before Wednesday, if not then I'll post the next story using my phone again, even if I don't want to... So no story tomorrow, unless Internet is miraculously back. Sorry guys.  
> But anyway, I wanted to thank everyone who read through my entire series during the break! I wanted to reply to your comments but I didn't want to be complaining about my Internet problems during the entire thing... Like I just did...  
> Well, this Author's note has been going on for long enough, so as usual, I hope you enjoy!

Carol stared at the screen, silent. She bit her lower lip. Her entire being was trembling. With a light flick of the hand, she rewound the footage. Then, she pressed play again. It was a camera feed from the inside of a research facility, near Washington. The footage showed from a corner of the room how the engine on the other side of the viewing window was becoming more and more unstable. Bouts of white energy flew all around the room. One such burst arched onto the window, shattering it into a million pieces. The energy of the blast sent the scientist which had been trying to contain the engine back. He tumbled against the wall, making the camera shake.  
  
Two people walked into the room, one wearing a lab coat and the other simple street clothing. The latter rushed to the scientist and helped him up. They passed him over to the other scientist, shielding them as they made their way as quickly as possible out of the room. Another arch of white light almost hit the door. Both scientists were thrown through the door by the third person. Then, the engine overloaded, and the camera exploded with it. Carol paused and rewound just enough to see the person walking into the room. A woman who never made it back out.  
  
She could zoom and observe the image for days. She could pass it through all sorts of facial software recognition. She didn't need any of them to tell her what she already knew. Monica had gone into that building to save people, people who'd tried and failed to get things under control after the people responsible had been snapped away. And she had never walked out.  
  
The thought alone made her stomach churn. She looked away when she felt tears burning the back of her eyes. She took in a deep breath and tried to calm herself. She'd cried enough. She'd blamed herself enough for not having been there. The only feeling she knew she would never get over was rage. Rage against Thanos, for having taken her family away.  
  
“Carol?”  
  
With another flick of the hand, the screen disappeared. Natasha was standing tentatively at the entrance of the room, looking at her with a mix of guilt and sadness. She'd been the one to break the horrible news to her, only because no one else could do it.  
  
“The raccoon said he could use your help,” Natasha said with disbelief as if she couldn't believe she was actually saying what she was saying.  
  
“Not like I have better things to do,” Carol replied.  
  
She clenched her fists and stomped toward the door. Anger was sipping through her every move, it was overflowing out of her. Somehow, however, her powers weren't using this opportunity to break out as well. Under all that anger, there was sadness. A deep tear in her heart, in her soul, so strong it made her believe she would never be the same again.  
  
She passed beside Natasha, who caught her arm before she could go through the door. Carol turned around and looked at her old friend. Blonde was a strange color on her.  
  
“I'm sorry. About Maria and Monica. And Fury.”  
  
“You did all you could,” Carol replied.  
  
I didn't do anything, Carol thought but kept it to herself. If she'd been there. If she'd had just a bit more time, if she'd been faster.  
  
“We'll make it right,” Natasha said.  
  
“You can't promise that,” Carol shot back, both more forcefully and a lot quieter than she had wished.  
  
Natasha heard it nonetheless.  
  
“We will.”  
  
Natasha finally let go of her, and she walked out the door and toward the main room, where almost everyone was reunited. Steve still had his beard, which Carol was very much not used to. Thor didn't have long hair anymore, also hard to believe. Oh, and there was a talking raccoon standing on the table and operating their computer. Earth was not what it used to be.  
  
“Hey, flashball!” he called her as she walked into the room. “I need someone who can fly into space and since you kind of came flying here I assume you can take a little trip back.”  
  
Carol had absolutely no wish to fly back into space unless it was to get to Thanos. She wanted to prepare some sort of attack plan, fly off on her own if she had to and kick Thanos into the nearest star.  
  
“What do you need?” she asked, not even hiding the annoyance in her voice.  
  
“My friends are out there. I just got a distress call from them, meaning they can't be too far. They're probably just here to pick me up and they ran out of fuel, these idiots don't know what to do without their captain. Anyway, could you get them for me?”  
  
Carol sighed.  
  
“Where are they?”  
  
Using both of his hands - paws? - Rocket moved the screen until it showed a small red dot blinking at the edge of the solar system.  
  
“Just a hop and a half for you.”  
  
Carol looked around her. Everyone was still recuperating, sadly looking at the death tolls ever climbing, or staring into the nothing. They were not ready for another strike, not like she was.  
  
“Fine. I'll bring them to you.”  
  
“And then I'll be out of your pretty hair!” the raccoon assured.  
  
 

* * *

  
  
The flight toward the spaceship was exactly what Carol needed to calm down, she realized. The emptiness, the calm. Just her and the fire of her powers burning in her veins, illuminating the dark void of space around her. The last time she had flown like that, she'd just left home. She'd just left Maria on the porch, with a goodbye kiss and a promise to vacuum the living room as soon as she made it home. Her heart clenched so painfully in her chest she almost had to stop flying altogether. She felt the weight of the ring around her finger. She thought it was colder than it had ever been.  
  
She willed the thoughts away and tried to think about something else. In fact, she tried to think about nothing, because nothing was all she had left, and it was all she deserved. She should have been there. If she'd been there she could have saved so many people. She could have... She could have...  
  
“Carol!”  
  
She stopped and looked around her. Someone had called her name, she was sure of it. She had heard someone call her name. But there was no one there. Only her, and space, and billions of stars. She frowned. Was she imagining things now? This voice had sounded so familiar too.  
  
As she looked around, she noticed a ship drifting a few miles under her position. She checked her computer. There it was. The Benatar. The new Guardian's ship. For one thing, she was not looking forward to Hbe reunited with that group of idiots. But Gamora knew a lot about Thanos. Maybe she knew where he was. She couldn't pass on that. She flew down, approaching the ship slowly. Only, when she was finally close enough, she noticed that it wasn't the Terran Star-Lord sleeping in the cockpit. It was Tony.  
  
He looked in terrible shape, tired, dehydrated and starving, probably in dire need of medical assistance. He blinked awake when she came close enough, the light of her powers waking her up. She looked down at him with a sympathetic smile. She put on her helmet and connected her computer to the ship's computer, asking for communication. Tony didn't move, probably too tired to turn the comms on. Someone else did it for him, a blue woman with metal parts sticking out of her head.  
  
“Tony, we thought we would never see you again,” she said, a hint of relief in her voice.  
  
Tony chuckled.  
  
“Here I was, looking forward to dying in peace.”  
  
“Not today, Iron Man. Not today.”  
  
She slid under the ship then moved behind it, and started pushing.  
  
 

* * *

  
  
They reached Earth on record time, and Carol gently placed the ship down onto the grass outside Avengers HQ. She'd called ahead to warn them of who was inside the ship. Tony, and Nebula. That was it. Pepper was there to welcome Tony when he was helped off the ship. Rocket was there for Nebula, and the two comforted each other in their own way.  
  
Tony was placed in a wheelchair and under perfusion. They tried to tell him to calm down, but he wouldn't. He attacked Steve, shouting 'Where were you when I needed you!'. Then, he attacked Carol.  
  
“And you, where were you! Don't pretend like you were there! You were our strongest asset. Oh, how you bragged about it! Why didn't you stop him!”  
  
Carol's anger was gone. She was stunned silent. Tony was right. Where was she when Thanos attacked? She was three steps behind him trying to follow when she should have been ahead of him, blocking his path at every turn.  
  
Suddenly Tony collapsed in front of her and Steve. They had to sedate him in bed. She watched from outside the bedroom they had placed him in as he slept, Pepper by his side.  
  
“Mom!”  
  
Carol turned around suddenly. She had heard something. She was sure of it. A voice in the air, someone was calling her. She clenched her teeth. It was just her imagination. She missed Monica so much she was starting to imagine her voice. She was going crazy. She needed to do something. She looked back at Steve and said:  
  
“Take care of him. I'll stop to get a xioning cure on my way back.”  
  
“Back from where?”  
  
She walked away quickly, but Steve followed her, Natasha close behind him.  
  
“Carol? Where are you going?”  
  
“I'm going to kill Thanos.”  
  
“Hey wait.”  
  
She turned around quickly and looked him dead in the eyes.  
  
“I can do it alone, don't worry.”  
  
“Alone is never how we succeed, remember? It's why we had the Avengers for.”  
  
“We have trillions of people to avenge, Steve, and we can't do that if we're stuck here! I can do it, I can kill him.”  
  
“Killing him won't bring them back,” Natasha said.  
  
Carol looked over at her, all of her assurance shattered by Natasha's words.  
  
“We need to be smarter than this if we want a chance to undo it.”  
  
“Easy. I kill him, I get the stones, I come back,” Carol replied.  
  
Steve shook his head.  
  
“How are you even going to find him?”  
  
She shrugged.  
  
“I have connections, I'm sure I can...”  
  
“Don't bother.”  
  
They all turned around. Nebula was standing in the door, listening in their conversation.  
  
“I know where Thanos is.”  
  
Thanos was on Titan 2. And he still had the stones. They could do it. They could fix the ship and go there, and get the stones from here.  
  
“We only have one chance,” Natasha said. “We owe it to everyone who's not in this room to try and fix everything.”  
  
“Together,” Steve added.  
  
Carol nodded in agreement.  
  
“Together. Whatever it takes.”


End file.
